


eager eyes

by mildlydiscouraging



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Friends With Benefits, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Songfic, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2350256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to tear down that wall, dig his nails into the mortar and pry apart the bricks until there's a hole big enough for him to breathe, to build a bridge across the gaping alleyway and to claw at the other side until he's lying in the rubble and breathing in the dust in the middle of the living room and can't be ignored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eager eyes

**Author's Note:**

> when in doubt / having awful writer's block on the longest thing you've ever written, listen to mr. brightside seven times in a row, cry about brandon flowers, and write 1.4k of angst.
> 
> (i really love the killers and i know this song is probably overdone for every pairing ever, but this idea just would not leave me alone so)

Neon is completely unnecessary, Dan decides, and he hates the person who thought it up. How sadistic did you have to be to think that taking the already intense bright lights of the city and making them more painful to look at was an okay idea? That piercing light shining from every single fucking club entrance was good enough that it should be everywhere, invading every pore of every city until you think even you yourself are glowing with that sickening artificial intensity.

_None of that means we shouldn't even try to do this properly, I mean, we didn't try to do this for real, things could still work._

Blackout curtains have nothing against the flashing signs hung from every building visible from his window, stabbing their way through until the sheer thought of trying to sleep is enough to make Dan want to rip out his hair and scream until every glowing tube shatters. Until the shards rain down on the people below, loitering in their reverse shadow and waiting for the darkness that'll never come. Until they understand how much they want to give in and let everything be washed out in that white light.

_How do you know it would, though? How do you know it won't just end like everything else in your life has? You said it yourself, nothing good ever lasts for you, so why would whatever this is be any different?_

He yanks the curtains open, giving in to the iridescent temptation, and let's himself be bathed in the neon as he sits on the floor of his living room in the nearest to silence you can get when dozens of people stumble past your building with every dragging hour. The claustrophobic sounds of the city's insomnia, always standing in the way of whatever silence he needs to sleep.

_Because none of that made sense, nothing made sense until you-_

From his spot in the middle of the hollow living room, he can see the window above his kitchen sink, the only one letting in warm yellow light instead of the migraine-inducing neon pink and blue of the rest of the city. The thought of that light coming anywhere near him makes Dan want to be sick.

_Not even this makes sense anymore, though, does it?_

The thought of the room that light comes from and the person who lives there and his stupid hair and disgusting smile and absolutely sickening way his eyes crinkle in the corners when he laughs and the way his hands fit in his and the sounds he made when-

_But it could, if we just actually tried for once, maybe..._

And Dan curls on his side and tips over onto the deceptively cold carpet and tries to find some semblance of comfort in the clinical white and black shadow of the window behind the couch. And he tries to ignore the demanding thoughts of everything that wasn't and all he can think of is how can it be so hard to forget things that never happened?

_You think this isn't me trying? You think this whole time I've just been here because I felt like it or it was convenient?_

Never did this, never did that, everything felt like it was made of fog and the second he tried to grab at it, it just dissolved into thick air and damp fingers. All the things that _had_ happened feel like a dream, or maybe a nightmare. And all the could've-would've-should've-beens keep running around in this head. He's doing fine, is what he tells everyone, and he tries to tell himself that as well, until the nauseating circles of what did and didn't happen become too much and he succumbs to the dizziness in his brain and can't operate anymore and ends up lying on his kitchen floor at two in the morning.

_But it's me, it's all me, because I've been to afraid to really try anything._

In the solace of the whirring air conditioning, he turns around until the light is at his back, like the monster can't see you if you can't see it. One stupid light bulb shattering the illusion of security he has in this empty apartment, one stupid kiss ruining everything he'd had planned. These thoughts keeping running through their well worn trenches in his skull until the light flickers for an infinitesimally long second, like a moth fluttering in front of a lantern.

_There's nothing to try. There's no other way to try._

So Dan gets up, and he takes a deep breath that shudders through his rib cage, and he cautiously sneaks around the corner into the empty part of the room that would've been a dining room (if he had anyone to ever have over), and he looks in the opposite window. And he sees them, an all too familiar outline and the terrifying shape of another person, a person who isn't him, a person who is allowed to be there and might not be kicked out in the morning and shouted at and shout back and dissolve every possibility of more. Someone who can control their future and have the guts to do any of the many things he never could figure out a way to.

_There's always a way._

The pit opens back up in his stomach, carefully sewn shut with all the promises he'd made to himself of "everything's fine" and "it didn't matter anyway" and the stitches are being ripped out and it's as open a wound as it ever was to begin with. And when he watches them slowly stumble out of view once more, he tries to convince himself that he was only imagining the blank look in his eyes, if only to save himself.

_Is there?_

The lamp in the other room is switched on, worsening that nostalgic warm light by making it brighter and harsher, and in that moment there's nothing Dan wants more than for one of them to walk out again and see him, outlined by their light in the middle of his dark apartment. That they'd see him on the outside and the guilt would ruin whatever they might have like it ruined his one chance. If he can't let go, he wouldn't let them either. He'd cling onto whatever they have until he can suck the optimism out of that too.

_There's got to be, there has to be some way we could fix-_

He opens the window and the once comforting sounds of the city filter through the acidic haze of cigarette some that floods the alley and clash in his ears, reminding him that even though he can still see across the gap, the outside is all he'll ever have anymore. There will always be another wall between their two apartments, two walls of brick bracketing a wall of uncomfortable silence. From now on his life will be full of that, uncomfortable silence in the lift, in the lobby, in the oppressive emptiness of his bedroom at two am.

_You should leave, I- I think you need to leave._

He wants to tear down that wall, dig his nails into the mortar and pry apart the bricks until there's a hole big enough for him to breathe, to build a bridge across the gaping alleyway and to claw at the other side until he's lying in the rubble and breathing in the dust in the middle of the living room and can't be ignored.

_I'm not leaving far._

It's like the empty alley between their apartments is stuffed with invisible cotton balls, leaving his mouth dry and empty as all the words he has shrivel up and die before ever getting spoken. All the words they've ever exchanged, the ones they didn't, jockeying for room in his crowded mouth and clogging up his throat, a dead weight keeping down the words he needs to do something with before they dissolve in acid and are lost forever. The wall is soundproof, keeping everything separated and silent, only allowing Dan to peer through the curtain and watch the silent film of the living room.

_I wish you would._

And no matter what he does, he's never pulling that curtain away again. Not the same way. Not any way at all. And the glaring neon lights pull him back to where he has to follow now that everything else's been swallowed by the bright void of what might have been.

**Author's Note:**

> so!! sads!!
> 
> i've been busy with school so i haven't finished that thing i said i was going to write, but! i accidentally started on a new multichapter thing thanks to my terrible friend [zel](http://stopwentz.tumblr.com) and that is nearly finished (the thing i was having this block with).
> 
> thank you sososo much for all the kudos and such on my last two fics, you guys are all awesome!!!
> 
> tumblr @[dweebhowell](http://dweebhowell.tumblr.com)


End file.
